Posted on 05/31/2013 2:44:05 PM PDT by NYer
Do our Catholic children and most adults know what these images teach?
All of us know one of the elephants in the room of the Catholic Church. Our religious education programs are not handing on the essence of our Catholic Faith, our parents are befuddled about their role in handing on the faith and the materials we use are vapid or if good do not make an impression on young minds. We are afraid of asking for memorization and thus most don't remember anything they've learned about God and Church other than some niceties and feel good emotions.
I teach each class of our grades 1-6 (we don't have 7th or 8th) each Thursday, rotating classes from week to week. For the last two years I have used Baltimore Catechism #1 as my text book. It is wonderful to use with children and it is so simple yet has so much content. If Catholics, all Catholics, simply studied Baltimore Catechism #1, we would have very knowledgeable Catholics.
These past two years I've used Baltimore Catechism #2 with our adult religious program which we call Coffee and Conversation following our 9:30 AM Sunday Mass, which coincides with our CCD program which we call PREP (Parish Religious Education Program).
This #2 book has more content and is for middle school, but upper elementary school children must have been more capable of more serious content back when this book was formulated and used through the mid 1960's because it is a great book to use with adults and not childish at all. We all use this same book as a supplemental book for the RCIA because it is so clear, nobly simple and chocked full of content!
Yes, there are some adjustments that need to be made to some chapters, but not that many, in light of Vatican II and the new emphasis we have on certain aspects of Church that are not present in the Baltimore Catechism. But these are really minor.
What is more important though is that when the Baltimore Catechism was used through the mid 1960's it was basically the only book that was used for children in elementary and junior high school. It was used across the board in the USA thus uniting all Catholics in learning the same content. There was not, in other words, a cottage industry of competing publishing houses selling new books and different content each year.
The same thing has occurred with liturgical music, a cottage industry of big bucks has developed around the sale of new hymnals, missalettes and new music put on the open market for parishes to purchase. It is a money making scheme.
Why do our bishop allow this to happen in both liturgical music and parish catechesis? The business of selling stuff to parishes and making mega bucks off of it is a scandal that has not be addressed.
In the meantime, our liturgies suffer and become fragmented because every parish uses a different resource for liturgical music and the same is true of religious formation, everyone uses something different of differing quality or no quality at all.
Isn't it time to wake up and move forward with tried and true practices that were tossed out in favor of a consumerist's approach to our faith that has weakened our liturgies, our parishes and our individual Catholics?
Not to mention that they also disagree on how many times the pope himself, claiming to have the prerogative of infallibility, or the magisterium in union with him, has spoken infallibly, defining “what has been taught always and everywhere,” let alone on aspects of it.
There are not only differences on what category some teachings fall under, and thus what level of dissent may be allowed (and disagreement on that aspect as well), if any and in what manner, but on how many levels there are, with a plethora of often prolix professors of Rome trying to explain it.
I can understand the sufficiency argument even though I can't support it. It is the exclusivity argument that I find completely bizarre and in contradiction to all Scripture and human logic. In any event, Salvation is not metered by what we know, but rather how we live what we know.
Peace be to you
Natural Revelation and Sacred Tradition for a start.
Peace be with you
Why, yes! I thought you'd never ask.
“JND Kelly disagrees with you”
JND Kelly doesn’t disagree with me, since you’re quoting him speaking on the Real Presence, not transubstantiation. That is, that despite their belief in the distinction between the symbol and the reality, that the reality was, in some way, present in the symbol. In his chapter on the development of doctrine on the Eucharist:
“Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realistic... Among theologians, however, this identity [realism] was interpreted in our period in at least two different ways, and these interpretations, mutually exclusive though they were in strict logic, were often allowed to overlap. In the first place, the figurative or symbolic view, which stressed the distinction between the visible elements and reality they represented, still claimed a measure of support. It harked back, as we have seen, to Tertullian and Cyrpian... Secondly, however, a new and increasingly potent tendency becomes observable to explain the identity as being the result of an actual change or conversion in the bread and wine.”(JND Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine pg 440)
Kelly asserts that an actual change in the elements, IOW, such as transubstantiation, is the later view, whereas the earlier view is the symbolic view, or the consubstantiation view. Keep in mind, what you’re looking for is evidence of transubstantiation. That is, that the symbols aren’t symbols at all, but actually become the real physical body of Jesus Christ. Consubstantiation or a spiritual presence within the Eucharist does not aid you. Kelly is an Anglo-Catholic, so I do disagree with him a great deal, but he does not support Roman theology.
“Have fun with these ones that proves Augustine believed everything the Church said regarding The Blessed Sacrament”
Your out of context quotes have already been refuted by my in-context ones. You should address all that Augustine said, and not just the parts where he himself admits to be speaking figuratively.
LOL I find it interesting that there is a debate on “how much scripture” is included in the mass. As far as I can see it wouldn’t matter because much of what the RCC teaches as scripture is misinterpreted to support their inclusion of paganism and error anyway. How many times have we seen scripture used to try to defend the existence of priests, Mary’s sinlessness, purgatory, or many other wrong teachings. Seems to me they could include more scripture than any other religion and it wouldn’t change the fact that they are in error.
These are NECESSARY???
Who knew!!
That is simply an exercise in double talk. Anyone competent enough in philosophy to write credibly on Catholic teaching, particularly a professor at Oxford, would not discuss elemental change in the context of transubstantiation. Elemental changes would be limited to the properties of the Eucharist.
Peace be to you
LOL! Your few paragraphs, plucked out of the entire life's work of a Doctor of the Catholic Church and out of the context of his predecessors, peers and successors, refutes absolutely nothing. Talk about hubris...
They have ‘proven’ they simply do not understand what was written.
Had there been actual disagreement I’m sure you would have corrected me.
The very last one you quoted:
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
GPH can ignore the post all he wants. It’s not my duty to provide for him what he already possesses on his ping list.
If he simply cannot reply to the charge already cited in this thread then it will stand.
“If they’re being led by the same Holy Spirit, then how can they have any differences of interpretation?”
I might ask the same of you. Since you believe that everyone must agree, does that mean that everyone who disagrees with your personal interpretation is not in the holy spirit?
Some people have less facility in discerning the Holy Spirit than others. Sometimes, even well meaning and well formed Christians get it wrong. This is why we need each other - to correct one another in the Lord when we fall as sinful men and sin against him.
“Oh, but when it’s the magisterium, well, then, consensus is good enough”
Absolutely it is. The charge against you isn’t that you have a magisterium of bishops, the charge is that you have a magisterium of one person. Who is divinely inspired and infalliable.
That is what we challenge. When asked, “who has the authority to interpret scripture”, you cannot answer that simple question. Heck, I could even when I was a protestant and the answer is simple.
These are not difficult, or leading questions. I am not trying to trap you or be unfair here. I am simply trying to get you to state what you do believe so that we all have an understanding.
“according to Catholic standards”
Between Natural Law and I? Dear, just because you assert that there is disagreement between us, does not make it so.
You are gravely mistaken.
I don't think we need to go far to see the Scriptures set their own priority even as that quote you showed says, the show of love among Jesus disciples is what made them distinguishable from the false claimants.
Upon examination it is this quality of love that is given top place among the virtues, “Love is the Law's fulfillment”, above faith and hope, above miraculous gifts as tongues and prophecy, which were to pass away, to the point that without this quality of love all else was pointless. To the degree, “God is love”.
So as I see it the understanding of the Scriptures are within themselves to those that truly seek it without trying to make a “trump card” on their own.
As to the third, we're not saved by doctrines but by our worship of God “in spirit and truth” as Jesus prayed for his disciples to be sanctified by “truth”.
In discussions with others assume good motives and don't rush to take comments personally. Civil toward all, respectful of none.
An “outermost circle”? A sort of minimum of belief and action? Does the Scripture set some minimum or define the edges of that circle?
“Surely you are joking? Canterbury?”
Not at all. It was expressly designed to serve as the bible for the CoE. The King backed it for this very reason. It was certainly not a ‘non denominational’ collaboration - the Head of the Church, Pope and King James Six and One, put forth his bible to his people. That his people would have his bible to rely upon. He quashed all the others.
“It does not make Mary a goddess of heaven”
Something the Catholic church does not teach.
Next time I see the reference made I will make sure I ping you to Mary being the goddess of heaven.
“Elevate? It is a tool”
Then you confess that it’s simply a tradition of men that you find reliable and helpful. There is nothing wrong with the tradition of men that help point us towards the truth in sacred scripture.
Every protestant relies on these tools. Whether they care to admit it or not, this is your tradition.
“And yet the majority of Christians practice the ancient festival of easter as if that makes it Christian.”
Why is Easter celebrated when it is?
“See I am not affixed to a denomination.”
Then why do you use the KJV?
“I guess you have not had the “Luther” is the devil class yet.”
You’re not using his bible are you?
“Why my KJV says without doubt there is but one King of Kings and Lord of Lords... What is to demand?”
When it was designed and published by the king?
“So as I see it the understanding of the Scriptures are within themselves”
Well, then Pope count-your-change has infalliably spoken. Scripture please that affirms this.
And that is the difference between the Church and the rest. With the Church there is an objective standard of truth that is based upon something other than individual vanity and Protestant gestalt.
Peace be with you
I suppose I should be flattered that you noticed my reply, I’m not, and that I’m worthy of a sarcasm, sometimes..maybe. But “themselves” in the quoted sentence refers to the Scriptures not the readers. So what’s with the Pope comment?
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